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  THE GIRL AT THE DEEP END OF THE LAKE

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  THE LIBRARIAN, HER DAUGHTER AND THE MAN WHO LOST HIS HEAD

  A wild ride! Takes its story from today’s headlines and plops it down in the most unexpected locale.

  Sam Lee Jackson has created an exciting series that makes you yearn for more and more of his books.

  This is a rollicking good story with considerable depth of character. Impossible to put down.

  I find myself wanting this to be a weekly series, I cannot wait for the next Jackson Blackhawk novel!

  If you are looking for a fun read, this is your book!

  The Bag Lady, the Boat Bum and the West Side King

  SAM LEE JACKSON

  Copyright © 2018 SAM LEE JACKSON.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized

  reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Piping Rock Publications

  3608 E Taro Lane, Phoenix AZ 85055

  www.samleejackson.com

  ISBN: (sc) 978-0-9998526-0-6

  (e) 978-0-9998526-1-3

  Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  DEDICATION

  For Carol, my north star

  Table of Contents

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  1

  The dirty, emaciated, bad smelling bag lady winked at me.

  I was sitting on my favorite barstool at El Patron. It was mid-afternoon and there were no customers. Nacho sat across from me reading a newspaper. Jimmy was behind the bar. Blackhawk and Elena were upstairs. She had a show tonight.

  The bag lady had slipped through the door into the main saloon. El Patron had three saloons, two of which spun off either side of the wide, long hallway that led from the main entrance to the big double doors of the third saloon. Each had its own dance floor, but this one was by far the largest. This was where Elena performed. Packing them in. Jimmy saw the bag lady and moved toward me to intercept her.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “If you go back outside and go around to the back, I’ll bring you some food.”

  That’s when she winked at me.

  With a jolt, I realized it was Detective First Grade Boyce.

  Boyce was a mess. Just a mess. Clothes all raggedy, smudges under her eyes. Hair all greasy and uncombed. On top of that hair was a ragged cloth stocking hat. For an instant I thought my eyes were playing tricks. Fastidious Boyce. Looking rode hard and put away wet. There was even a slight, disturbing odor.

  I could do nothing but stare. She moved up to me and slipped up on the next barstool. She slid the arms of her dirty jacket up to her elbows and leaned on them. She cocked her head and looked at me. With that damned knowing smile of hers. Her arms had angry little tracks on them. The tracks of an addict.

  I guess I was speechless, so she said, “Looking for a good time, sailor?”

  I reached a finger and rubbed one of the spots on her arm. It rubbed off.

  “Early for Halloween,” I said.

  Jimmy was confused.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “If you’ll go back outside, I’ll get you something to eat.”

  “I’m not hungry, Jimmy,” Boyce said.

  Jimmy frowned, then leaned closer, “Oh my God."

  Boyce laughed. She looked at Nacho, “How you doin’, Nacho?”

  He was smiling, “Just fine Ma’am. I like your outfit.”

  She grinned at him, “Why thanks Nacho. That’s the nicest thing you ever said to me.”

  “Yes Ma’am,” he said. “But not the nicest thing I’ve ever said about you.”

  Her face lit up, “Always the sweet talker, Nacho. Always the sweet talker.”

  “Can I get you something?” Jimmy asked, not sure what was going on. Me too.

  “No thanks.” She looked at me, “I want you to come outside with me.”

  “What’s outside?”

  She slid off her stool. She started away, not looking back. I looked at Nacho. He grinned, shook his head and shrugged. I slid off my stool and followed.

  Like I wouldn’t.

  The sun was dropping in the west. The big parking lot was mostly empty. It wouldn’t be for long. This part of the world knew Elena and her big Salsa band were playing tonight, and soon the place would be jammed. Across the lot, by the street, was something I recognized. An unmarked police vehicle. I followed Boyce toward it. There were men inside. I recognized one. Captain Mendoza, Phoenix PD. Mendoza was the head of the city of Phoenix’s gang division. Or, he had been the last time I saw him. Maybe he was the police king by now.

  Mendoza was in the front passenger seat. I didn’t recognize the other man, but he had cop written all over him. Boyce moved around to the other side, signaling me to follow. I did. She opened the back door and waved me in. I slid in. She shut the door and moved back around and stood at the curb. Mendoza slid his back against the door and put his left arm up on the seatback, so he could look at me.

  “Detective Armstead, why don’t you join Detective Boyce outside?”

  Armstead looked at him, then turned his head to look back at me. “You sure, Sir?”

  Mendoza just looked at him.

  Armstead looked hard at me, then slid out and shut the door a little too forcefully.

  “Temper, temper,” I said.

  Mendoza studied me.

  “Boyce knows why we’re here. Armstead doesn’t.”

  That didn’t require a response. />
  He looked out the window, like he needed something to look at. “How’s the foot?” he said.

  “Still gone,” I said.

  He almost smiled, but didn’t.

  He studied me some more. Making up his mind, I guess. I waited. I knew he would get to it. He did.

  “Ever heard of guy name of Cicero Paz?”

  That took me aback. “Can’t say I have.”

  “Runs the drug trade out of Maryvale. Controls all the meth, heroin, whatever sales throughout most of west and south metro area. Ruthless son of a bitch. Destroys a lot of lives.”

  “If not him, someone else. He doesn’t make them buy it. Why would I know who he is?”

  Now he did smile, “No reason. But, yes, you’re right, he’s the guy now, and I want to take him down.”

  I looked out the window. Boyce had started smoking again. I shook my head. “You have the full resource of law enforcement.”

  “And, the key word is law. Something we have to observe.”

  I laughed out loud. “You need someone to break the law?”

  He shook his head, like he was tired. “Let’s not play games. We both know who you are, and what you are capable of doing, and I might add you have taken matters into your own hands more than once.”

  “Boyce is undercover. You tellin’ me that undercover cops never bend, or even break the laws?”

  “Not something I would choose,” he said. “But, it’s more than that.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I’ve got Boyce deep under, and Cicero is a psychopath. She’s there alone and these are some very bad guys. I can put someone else under, but I don’t think I have anyone that could go to the lengths that might be necessary to work their way inside, let alone protect her.”

  “And, I would?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  I looked at him. The son of a bitch.

  “You playing that card?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “You think because she took a bullet for me. You think because we had a relationship. That I’ll do this thing for you?”

  He still didn’t say anything.

  I studied him. Like looking at a wall.

  I leaned back in the seat. “You think your guy will get himself killed. And, if I get myself killed, nobody knows who I am. Just a dead body in an alley.”

  “I think you are better trained than my guys,” he said.

  I looked at him for a long time. He didn’t waiver.

  “She in danger?”

  He glanced outside at Boyce. “Oh, yeah. If Paz found her out, she’d be raven bait in the river bottom.”

  I looked back out at Boyce. She was standing next to Armstead, her back to me. She flipped her cigarette butt into the parking lot. This irritated the shit out of me. Blackhawk would have to have the cleaners come out and pick it up. Yes, he is that fastidious.

  “If there is anyone that can take care of themselves, it’s Boyce.”

  He nodded, “Yes, but I still want someone to watch her back. I won’t say, you owe her.”

  “I do owe her,” I said.

  In this very parking lot, Boyce had shoved me out of way of an oncoming bullet, and had taken it herself for her efforts.

  “Okay,” I said. “Tell me specifics?”

  He looked at me then ran his window down. “Boyce,” he said. She turned to look at us, came around, and opened the back door. She slid in beside me.

  “He in?” Boyce asked Mendoza.

  Mendoza looked at me, “You in?”

  “Tell me about it.”

  He knew he couldn’t push me. He took a moment, then began to talk. “Cicero Paz operates out of the neighborhood he grew up in. He’s like a good old fashion Mafia Don. He controls everything on the west and south side. Nobody spits that he doesn’t get a piece of it. He controls everyone. And, that’s because he does a lot of favors. You own a small business and you’re having trouble with a vendor. The trouble goes away. You got gangs chasing away your customers, suddenly the gangs go away. You get in a bind and can’t pay the mortgage on your shop. He gives you the money, and he doesn’t screw you on the vig.”

  “Sounds like a regular Robin Hood.”

  “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?”

  “But?”

  “But, if he’s done you a favor, then you can bet the time will come when you will do him a favor. There is no choice in the matter. You are going to do it. No matter what it is. You accept his help, and he owns you.”

  I looked at Boyce, “What’s your role?”

  “I’ve established as a homeless bag lady on the block by the bar he operates out of. I watch the activity and report it back to Mendoza.”

  “But not inside?”

  “That would be you.”

  I looked back to Mendoza, “How are we going to do that?”

  Mendoza almost smiled, “Boyce says you have a tactical side to you. She says you’ll figure a way.”

  I looked at Boyce.

  “Jesus, Boyce. You stink to high heaven.”

  She grinned and pulled a baggie out of her pocket. I looked at it. It looked nasty.

  “Old, raw, chicken skin,” she said. “Keeps the bad guys away better than a suit of armor.”

  This time Mendoza did smile.

  2

  I parked the new Mustang at the top of the hill and walked down. The new car was a replacement for the one that had been totaled on the back road to Sedona. This one was still Candy Apple Red and a GT. Maybe it was just me, but it drove a little differently. I was still getting used to it.

  I went through the security gate that guarded the dock my old houseboat was moored on. After I had lost the foot, and had found myself back in the world with limited cash, it was all I could afford. Tiger Lily, moored at Pier C, Slip 32, Pleasant Harbor Marina on Lake Pleasant, north of Phoenix. Named by the previous owner. I was too lazy to change it. Blackhawk said it fit my Peter Pan persona.

  As I reached the boat I could see something was laying on the stern. It was a big dark mass. Then it moved. It was a dog. A big, old, black dog of undetermined breed. I say old because of the gray hairs speckled through its snout. My sliding doors were open. When I stepped on board it didn’t get up, but its tail began thumping the deck. I approached cautiously, my closed fist extended for a sniff.

  Now it lumbered up and sniffed my hand, then moved to sniff my pant leg. I scratched behind its ear. My hidden alarm was blinking, I reached down and turned it off. I stepped from the bright light into the shadow of the main lounge. The dog lay down on the stern again.

  Old Eddie was sitting on my oversized yellow couch, and Pete Dunn was perched on a bar stool. Eddie was a retired Chicago cop who lived and did odd jobs at the marina. Last summer, Eddie had helped me drag the Tiger Lily out of the water for its annual cleaning. We had sweat buckets as we scraped the lake equivalent of barnacles and painted her hull. Pete was a relatively new neighbor. He had been an ex-attorney and television writer, and had bought the Moneypenny and renamed her Thirteen Episodes. Which is what he had sold to buy her. They each held a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon. The remainder of the six-pack sat on the galley counter.

  “Make yourselves at home,” I said.

  “Thanks,” Eddie said. “Have a beer.”

  “Eddie said it would be okay,” Pete said.

  “It is,” I said. I took a bottle, and ignoring the twist off cap, opened it with the church key that was laying on the counter.

  “Who’s your friend?” I said, indicating the dog with a tilt of my bottle.

  “Oh, that’s Diesel,” Eddie said.

  “Whose is it?”

  “Yours, mine, Pete’s, whoever,” Eddie said. “Showed up one morning, laying on the dock, back of the bar. No collar, no ID. Seemed grateful for a meal.”

  “I’ll bet he was.”

  “Know a bit what that’s like. So, guess he took to me. He sleeps on board with me at night.”

  “What’s Maureen say
?” Maureen was the Marina manager.

  “Says, as long as I keep him out of the store and bar. She kinda likes old Diesel keeping the gulls off the dock. Less bird shit.”

  “Good to be useful.” I hooked a barstool with my toe and drug it around to the end of the bar. I turned it and sat on it backwards, straddling the seat, with my arms on the back. “So where does Diesel do his business?”

  “I pick it up,” Eddie smiled. “Plastic bag it, and put it in the dumpster.”

  “How you been?” I said to Pete.

  “Great,” he said. “Starting to get bored.”

  “You said once you were going to write a novel.”

  “Easy to say it, harder to do. Eddie and I were talking about how you helped his nephew up there in Cottonwood. Saved that girl and everything. Maybe there’s a story there. Nobody ever did say what happened out in the desert.”

  I shook my head. “Last thing I need,” I said.

  Eddie was smiling. He looked at Pete, “Told you.”

  Pete nodded, smiling, “Yeah you did.”

  “Either one of you guys ever hear of a guy named Cicero Paz. Big meth dealer on the west side.”

  Pete shook his head, “My world is pretty small right here. I only just met you guys.”

  Eddie was looking at me, “Christ, boy, what you getting yourself into now?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “As usual,” Eddie said.

  “Favor for Mendoza,” I said.

  Eddie shook his head. “Mendoza don’t ask for favors.”

  “He did this time.”

  Eddie ruefully shook his head. “Oh man, you’re in deep shit.”

  3

  I met Boyce at a Starbucks on 19th Avenue. She wasn’t wearing her Halloween costume. She had on her police uniform, which meant black slacks, a crisp white blouse, and a black business jacket. Her badge and gun were on her belt. She was clean and fresh, with her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was standing out front when I pulled up. She was holding a Starbucks cup.